Icelandic books continue to travel around the world and will soon be published in 17 languages
Icelandic Literature Center recently awarded 38 grants to foreign translation of Icelandic works into 17 foreign languages; these include children's books, fiction, classical literature and poetry.
This year, in two allocations, a total of 92 grants were awarded for the translation of Icelandic books into 27 languages; English, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish and more. The application deadline is twice a year, in February and September.
Varied books that have just been published in Iceland are now finding their way to new readers abroad.
Translations of Sigríður Hagalín Björnsdóttir novel Eldarnir. Ástin og aðrar hamfarir are to be published in French and Danish and a translation of the novel Eden by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir will be published in Norwegian and Catalan.
The Danish translator Kim Lembek is working on the second book in Hallgrímur Helgasons series, Sextíu kíló af kjaftshöggum. Lungu by Pedro Gunnlaugur Garcia will soon reach readers of German, French and Portuguese (Brazilian) languages. The poetry books Síðasta vegabréfið and Draumstol by Gyrði Elísson will be translated into Danish by Erik Skyum-Nielsen.
Many children's books are among the works that received grants like Kollhnís by Arndís Þórarinsdóttir that will be published in Estonian and Ævar Þór Benediktsson's Skólaslit that is to be published in Danish. The third monster book, Skrímslapest, by Áslaug Jónsdóttir, Kalle Guettler and Rakel Helmsdal will be translated into Japanese but the first two have already been published there. Rán Flygenring and Hjörleifur Hjartarson's book, Sagan um Skarphéðin Dungal sem setti fram nýjar kenningar um eðli alheimsins will be read by Korean children in the near future.
The Icelandic crime novel has enthusiastic readers all over the world, and the works of Ragnar Jónasson, Eva Björg Ægisdóttir, Arnaldur Indriðason and Lilja Sigurðardóttur are expected to be published numerous languages in the coming months.
You can take a look at all the grants by country here.